


won't hurt so much forever

by airnomadenthusiast



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Avatar: The Shadow of Kyoshi
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, F/F, noodles scene, rangi's an angry little lesbian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:26:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29158119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airnomadenthusiast/pseuds/airnomadenthusiast
Summary: Rangi didn't know how she could forgive Kyoshi. Then again, she didn't know how she couldn't.fic title from Arlo Parks' "Hurt"
Relationships: Kyoshi/Rangi (Avatar)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 68
Collections: Winter ATLA Femslash Week 2021





	won't hurt so much forever

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is for the angst prompt for winter ATLA femslash week!

“Don’t apologize to me,” Rangi said, her eyes blazing, her mouth set in a firm line. “There’s no need. Because from this point on, I am  _ nothing  _ to you,” she spat. “Do you hear me, Avatar Kyoshi?  _ Nothing.”  _

A part of her regretted it as soon as she said it, but there was no turning back. And she didn’t  _ want to turn back.  _ So she walked away, down the stairs 

Kyoshi knew she shouldn’t have done this. Putting her mother’s life at risk—using her as bait—it was cruel, it was heartless, it was something that Jianzhu would do—

That stopped Rangi in her tracks. 

She remembered how Kyoshi had looked for weeks and weeks after they had run away from Yokoya, hollowed out, a husk of a person. Jianzhu had done that to her. Jianzhu had done that to  _ them,  _ to Kyoshi and… and Yun, she thought bitterly,  _ Yun,  _ who was hunting down her mother now, and Kyoshi had the power of the four elements and she  _ wouldn’t stop it— _

No. That wasn’t true either. 

Rangi sighed. She knew what she should feel—hurt, anger, betrayal. And she felt all of that, like a well in her chest with no bottom, a fire that couldn’t be put out no matter how hard anyone tried. She wanted to explode again, be bitter until the end of her days, run away from this place and never see any of them again. They had gone behind her back, they had  _ conspired against her— _

_ Kyoshi hasn’t eaten since last night.  _

Rangi’s eyes widened. No, she hadn’t. 

There wasn’t anything in this Spirits-damned house to eat, and anyway, Rangi wasn’t a cook. She found some noodles, and decided that that would do. 

_ Would she have told me over my mother’s dead body?  _

Maybe. Rangi didn’t know. That was so like Kyoshi—wait and listen, don’t rush anything, don’t do anything, don’t  _ act— _ but Rangi was all action, all rush and no wait. And she liked that about them: Kyoshi was meticulous, Rangi was bold, and together they were unstoppable. 

Rangi shook her head. It was her  _ mother.  _ Kyoshi knew how important her mother was to her. Her mother was all she had left in this world, and Kyoshi would leave her for dead, without a second thought. Kyoshi would do that to her. 

But that couldn’t have been Kyoshi’s intention. 

There was no fuel in that house, so Rangi boiled the water with her own bending, lighting a fire from that scorched place in her heart to heat the pot. She threw the noodles in dry and stirred them in. The water bubbled and hissed around them, smelling of lye and something base. Rangi wrinkled her nose. What they needed was probably time, energy she didn’t have, patience she didn’t want. It wouldn’t be the nicest meal of Kyoshi’s life, but Kyoshi didn’t  _ deserve  _ a nice meal right now. 

And then, the memory came. It wasn’t really her memory, but rather something that she’d constructed from the stories that Kyoshi had told her, of her time on the streets. A little girl, much too tall for her age, rummaging through garbage, looking for scraps. It was no small wonder that Kyoshi remembered to eat anything better than that. 

She was the  _ Avatar.  _ She deserved to be kept in comfort all her life. She deserved to have people bow down at her feet, always. No matter what mistakes she made. 

Something in Rangi’s throat closed up. She had made a mistake. 

Kyoshi had. 

(But, maybe, perhaps, Rangi had too. Not that she would ever say so—she had her pride to think of.)

(But she missed her. Her girl. It had only been minutes, and she missed her, like she would miss a piece of her own body. There were phantom pains where Kyoshi should be.) 

There was nothing on the noodles when Rangi put them in a bowl and marched them upstairs. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do with them—put them in salt or garlic or leave them be. There was some kind of sauce drizzled on them, usually, she suspected, but what, she didn’t know. She didn’t care to know. Food was food, and Kyoshi needed to eat. That was what mattered. That was all that had ever mattered. 

Kyoshi’s dark brown eyes widened when she saw Rangi enter the room, and something in Rangi broke.  _ Her girl. Hers.  _

And then she saw her mother, and all her softness hardened. 

It was always this way with love, she thought. She was always pulled in so many different directions, forced to follow one half of herself or the other, to choose between two impossible outcomes. Forgive the unforgivable, because she couldn’t live without the person who had hurt her. 

Or at least, it was always this way with Kyoshi. 

Maybe it had been this way between her mother and her father. Maybe her mother, headstrong and exacting, had had to adapt, change herself around to understand him, to forgive him, to grow from him. Maybe that was what love was—growing until you learn to forgive. 

“You haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon!” she screamed, shoving the noodles in Kyoshi’s face. She looked shocked, but she didn’t flinch. Just took the noodles, her whole disposition brightening, a hint of hope in her eyes. 

And that was something. Hope and Kyoshi didn’t get along so well. 

Rangi wasn’t sure what to do, other than turn on her heel and leave just as soon as she had come. They would be okay. They would have to be, because try as she might, Rangi could never leave. 

Rangi’s heart was scorched, but she didn’t care. She was in love. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! if you enjoyed that, please consider checking out [ this gofundme ](https://harutheestallion.tumblr.com/post/641978515886063616/urgent) to help a Black queer woman escape her abusive home, as well as [ The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights ](https://ellabakercenter.org/donate/) a organizing and strategy center working to end police and prisons. if you want to see more of me, you can follow me on tumblr @harutheestallion


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